Chapter Eleven: All in a Days/Months/Years Work
"This is the King Henry V we suffered a misjump and are in need of help making some repairs. Let us know when a slot opens up." Echoed through the Communications relay of the Recharge station Janus. "This is the Recharge station Janus, we read King Henry V and have you on our scopes. We're gonna run a quick check on your credentials and put you in the cue for recharging and we'll work on getting a line on those repairs." The Officer at communications Ensign Robert Hall replied before turning to his supervisor Lieutenant Erica Lamb. "Ma'am, We have old records that indicate that the last time that anyone saw or heard from the King Henry V was before the Succession Wars."
"Alright Ensign, I'll push it up the chain, they may be pirates who stole the Jumpships years ago and just now managed to get it back into running shape." Lieutenant Lamb responded. "That being said, we do still have to make sure that everything is authentic and if it is, we have no reason to deny them access for now, but we can stall until we get the all clear. Better safe than sorry if it is a pirate raid."
"Understood Ma'am, I'll run everything through and make em wait a bit until I get some confirmation from the higher ups." Ensign Hall responded. "Have a good night LT."
Twenty-Four hours later….
"This is the Jumpship King Henry V. Is there any chance that a spot has opened up?" I asked while sitting in the navigation chair. I had set everything for station keeping and gone and taken a nap and gotten some food while waiting for a response from the Janus. I was willing to wait, but I really needed to have some contact with another human being before I went truly insane. I was in the middle of stuffing my face with a bunch of MRE candy that I had saved out of the ones I had eaten over the past year and half when I finally got a response.
"King Henry V you are cleared to proceed to docking bay 4 we are sending over a course and handshake signal for your autopilot to follow. Do not I repeat do not deviate from the course we send you."
Choking down the handful of Skittles that I had been munching on, I responded and opened up my comms in order to receive the autopilot signal and begin the docking procedures. "Janus we copy and are accepting the Handshake signal now. Laying in course to begin docking now." I drank a swig of water to wash down the mass of Sugar that was stuck in my throat and got ready to meet and greet with the locals.
Lieutenant Erika Lamb hated being the supervisor on shift at times. While everything had come back clean on the King Henry V there remained some suspicion and so they made sure that there was a security team armed and on standby. When the airlock opened to reveal one guy in an ancient space suit, they all breathed a little bit easier. Erika stepped up to greet him and noticed that his eyes got really wide when he first took in the fact that he had a welcoming party of one. Stepping up to introduce herself and holding out her hand, she was taken by surprise and almost yelled for security when the man hugged her and swung her around for a second whispering to himself. "You're real."
Once I had recovered from my embarrassing loss of self control I set the woman who was there to greet me down and blushed furiously while apologizing in a flurry of words I'm surprised she understood. After my flood had subsided for me to take a break she inserted herself into the conversation and introduced herself.
"I'm Lieutenant Erika Lamb, one of the supervisors of this station." She said after smoothing her uniform out and composing herself for a second. "You must be one of the crewman of the King Henry V I suppose." She stated while he caught his breath.
"I..."I paused for a second to compose myself. "I suppose you could call me that." I said as I stammer for a second while attempting to reign my emotions at seeing another human being back in. "I had bartered passage on the King Henry V in exchange for learning some of the engineering. Then we Misjumped right into a hidden SDS depot or something. The crews on the Dropships got greedy and went onboard in order to salvage something because it looked damaged. Then the rest of the crew on the Jumpship went with them because they wanted help. I got left behind because I wasn't part of the crew and they didn't want me to get any of the salvage." I paused for breath for a minute after spilling a whole bunch of BS partly to make it seem like I was still recovering from the events, and partly to finish getting my story set in my mind. "I think they accidentally screwed with the IFF or the system or something because the depot vented atmosphere and everyone that was there died. The King Henry V took some damage when everything was vented, and It took me weeks just to get everything patched enough to limp back to the Sphere."
One of the things about an effective lie, is that not only are the easiest lies to tell intermixed with truth, if you deliver a lie that should make you emotional at a time when you are high on emotions it helps sell the message. The fact that I was actually overcome with emotion just from interacting with another Human being again helped sell my story to both Lieutenant Lamb and the rest of the recharge station. And the way that I reacted when they told me that it was 3001 instead of the 2770s was part of the reason that everything worked out in my favor in the Pierce system.
Personal Journal November 15th 3001. I managed to pay the recharge stations crew with some of the SLDF uniforms that I "found in the depot". They accepted that as collateral of other payments until I settled accounts and managed to find a crew. Lieutenant Lamb's contract is actually up in December and has been receptive of offers to poach her from her current job when it is up. Using the Comms systems built into the King Henry V and the Janus, I made contact with the Local HPG (Which was a pain due to delayed transmissions let me tell you.) And apparently the Ministry of Communications had left records of financial transactions and other things that Comstar was able to pull up. It took several weeks to compile all of the funds, but I was left with just over a billion in accumulated assets (Thanks t the SLIC captain. With about one hundred million in liquid assets that could be transferred to a local Pierce branch as soon as I could make Landfall. My plan in this case was to see if I could land and lease out most of the IndustrialMechs while selling off the SLDF uniforms and recruiting both crew and some Mechwarriors while planetside. There will always be people who want a second chance at life and if I could find those people, I would have the core of a team. I offered the crew and owners of the Janus extra cash if they would allow the King Henry to remain docked while I tried to find crew to fill out the rosters on the Dropships and Jumpship. They agreed on the condition that they were added to any potential trade routes that the King Henry might ply